The big life of Boston redevelopment director Stephen Coyle
Back in 1985, I wrote a profile of Stephen F. Coyle that kicked off with the director of what was then called the Boston Redevelopment Authority walking out of his office while quoting William Butler Yeats: “Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love.” The piece went on to state that Coyle was “uniformly described as intelligent, possibly brilliant, almost seductively charming, an intellectual with vision and a planner who could translate broad concepts into real policy.”
Take out the “possibly” and the “almost” and that he was. He was also a tough negotiator.
Coyle, who died Dec. 18 at age 78 in his home in Vienna, Va., served as BRA director from 1984 to 1992 during the administration of Mayor Ray Flynn. That’s a long time ago. But in Boston he is remembered for a legacy measured not by buildings but by his vision for what those buildings could generate: open space and neighborhood investment, character and soul.
“He raised the visibility of planning and development in Boston,” said Chris Grace, who met Coyle at Stanford Law School and served as chief of staff at the BRA during Coyle’s tenure. “He took a holistic approach that took into account many different factors.” That included the approval process, who benefitted from it and who did not; along with issues that had not been considered before, such as shadow, wind, and how design could either complement or disrupt the space around it.
Coyle was always on the people’s side. “He was a poor kid from Waltham who made good. He was not part of the elite mindset,” Grace said. “He was a tough, brilliant street kid who knew how to fight for what he believed in. He believed in the city and getting things done for the public.”
Under Coyle, the city committed to public access to the harbor. He set up a civic design commission and hired architects and planners to professionalize the BRA (now called the Boston Planning & Development Agency). He slowed down the development pipeline so more careful thought went into what was being built, and he made sure the city got something in return. Working with Bruce Bolling, Boston’s first Black City Council president, he pushed the concept known as linkage, which required developers who wanted to build downtown to also build in less sought-after neighborhoods. He took it a step further by requiring developers to hire people of color at all levels of a project, from developer to construction worker.
Thanks to this creative approach, Coyle gained a national reputation as overseer of a Boston planning and development renaissance.
Meanwhile, on the ninth floor of Boston City Hall, the planning director bounced along in sneakers long before that was typical office footwear and went to bat for so many people that Grace said the staff used to joke, “You can’t leave him alone in the elevator, he might hire someone.”
But Coyle was not all sweetness and Yeats. In California, he worked for renowned architect John Carl Warnecke, and as BRA director, he was demanding. He forced developers to hire new architects if he didn’t like what he saw. After the Central Artery was buried underground by the Big Dig, he made sure the land above it turned into the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway rather than into a strip of tall buildings. He famously challenged developer Don Chiofaro over his design plans for International Place. “Steve Coyle did what he thought was in the best interests of the city, and in the end I agreed,” Chiofaro told me. Only the smaller part of tower one has Palladium windows, which Coyle hated. The second tower has none. Still, after their battles, “Steve became a great friend. He knew our business because it was his business as well,” Chiofaro said.
Having served as Waltham’s youngest city councilor, and also as director of the housing authorities in Waltham and Dedham, Coyle was a seasoned politician whose motto, Grace said, was, “It’s easier to seek forgiveness than permission.” He pushed hard, sometimes against the mayor who appointed him. That profile I wrote quotes Flynn as saying Coyle had a tendency to “move too fast.”
But the result was what long-time housing activist Lew Finfer calls “a BIG life.” As just one illustration, Finfer cites Coyle’s aggressive move to take an undeveloped parcel in the West End that developer Jerome Rappaport had not yet used for luxury housing. After Rappaport lost a court battle to get it back, Coyle gave development rights to the Archdiocese of Boston, which used it to build some affordable housing.
About that Yeats quote: It is from “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” and ends with these lines “A lonely impulse of delight, Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind, In balance with this life, this death.”
From Boston’s perspective, there was no waste in Coyle’s impulse.
He is remembered for a legacy measured not by buildings but by his vision for what those buildings could generate: open space and neighborhood investment, character and soul.